It's what they don't say that can kill you. Since the 1930s, scientists have known that what people ate, or breathed in, or simply had the misfortune to live or work around could make them sick to death. Yet to this day, vital research data is being kept under wraps, while corporations and government agencies (even eminent cancer-fighting organizations) boast of breathtaking advances in conquering the disease. In her devastating, 20-years-in-the-making exposé, The Secret History of the War on Cancer (Basic), Devra Davis, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, shows how cancer researchers, bankrolled by petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies, among others, collude in "the science of doubt promotion." They deftly spin results to suggest uncertainty where none exists, deflect blame, and prioritize treatment—a source of windfalls for drug manufacturers—over prevention. Davis diagnoses two of the most lethal diseases of modern society: secrecy and self-interest. This book is a dramatic plea for a cure.

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